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Day 8 – Atlantic City, New Jersey to Palmerton, Pennsylvania

Yesterday, hot and sunny this morning it was raining, windy and the waves were really quite high and breaking on the shore creating white water. Good job the Ironman was yesterday and not today.

We were told yesterday that the bar at The Claridge Hotel was the original from when the hotel opened in 1930. Just imagine the people who have sat there! Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra to name just two.

These are photographs on two the lift doors, remembering Atlantic City how it used to be.

After breakfast and with our pockets a little lighter than when we arrived in Atlantic City on Friday, we headed out on our relatively short trip to Palmerton, Pennsylvania. Straight away we discovered we had trouble with Margaret (sat nav) again in as much as she kept wanting to take us the long way to our destination just as she did when we were travelling to Atlantic City. Our trip this morning should have only taken us 2.5 hours whereas Margaret was saying it would take 4.5 hours. What could possibly be wrong with Margaret!!??

Well, suddenly a lightbulb turned on in my head and I knew what the problem was! Click on ‘Settings’ and there it was! Whoever had been using the sat nav before us had programmed it to avoid all toll roads!!!!!! Hence, why she kept trying to either get us to do a u-turn or keep asking us to turn right or left off the Interstate. As soon as I turned ‘no toll roads’ off everything was right again with Margaret. Hooray!

By the time we arrived in Palmerton the weather was sunny and hot. If you read yesterday’s post you will know that we were meeting up with our good friends Nat, Terry and Ty today.

We spent some time this afternoon with Nat visiting the town of Jim Thorpe. Nestled in the breathtaking Lehigh Gorge, this Victorian town originally known as Mauch Chunk was changed to Jim Thorpe in honour of the Olympic champion.

James Francis Thorpe, (May 22 or 28 1887 – March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation. Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for his home country. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, and played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules that were then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored his Olympic medals.

The town has been called the “Switzerland of America” due to the picturesque scenery, mountainous location, and architecture.

Sandra with Nat in Jim Thorpe with the biggest lump of coal Nat had ever seen!

We all had a lovely dinner together but unbelievably we were so busy enjoying ourselves that we forgot to take a group photograph!! I know I have one from the last time we all got together so I’ll dig that out and post it instead!!

Tomorrow we head to The Outer Banks in North Carolina, a 200-mile-long (320 km) string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast. Somewhere in the US that we have never visited before!

That bar looks amazing. As you say, the history wow! We have called our sat Nav, Doris. We are now on Doris 3. Hysterical meal tonight in a golf club, recommended but dear, oh dear. The main dining room was shut because of a function they had earlier that day. So we ate in a utility type place watching a game of ice hockey on a huge, hung television. Boy do I know how to treat a lady. 😀 Good luck with your entries on Wednesday Si, if you put them in before you left. Some 10’s here already, I’m a thinking.

As always it was so nice spending time with you both! I am glad I got to learn the history of Jim Thorpe! lol…after a lot of questions and a history lesson from Terry on our drive home Ty was asking how we could still be friends with England if we were went to war with each other long ago! Then he asked why we don’t have an accent…I explained we do to them!! ha. So many questions you both would have enjoyed it! Have a safe drive to the Outer Banks!! xx